"Social Media" is SO 2009! 7 Proposed Semantic Upgrades

At the risk of inspiring unresolvable semantic discussions, this post addresses seven Digital Era terms that should probably be replaced and/or removed from the lexicon and suggests both existing and new alternative terminology to use in their place. What other proposed changes would you make?

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I generally try to avoid semantic arguments. Having clarity about the meaning of various terms, especially those related to emerging technologies and trends, is no doubt important. But when the terms and their meanings are evolving, discussions about them can devolve into an infinite loop of opinions and perceptions that produce neither clarity nor consensus.

That said, there are some uses and misuses that have been bothering me for a while now. And since we’ve reached a reasonable level of maturity and stability in a number of areas, I think it’s time to give serious consideration to making semantic changes that enable us to use more accurate, logical and fact-based language to refer to elements of the world we live in – and to stop using passé terms unnecessarily.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on my proposals, as well as any additional recommendations you may have. Thanks!

- Courtney Shelton Hunt

 

Going from the general to the specific...

Social Media. Wikipedia lays out a decent denotation of the term, but the connotation still varies widely. And in my experience, most people equate the term with the public platforms, assuming the social media universe is solely comprised of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and their ilk. That assumption not only misses the point that it's the technologies underlying those platforms that constitute social media, it also (more importantly) leads them to draw erroneous conclusions about the potential that social media holds for both them and the organizations of which they're a part. Plus, for laggards and resisters, the term evokes a negative visceral reaction that's hard to overcome.

I'm not proposing we do away with the term altogether, I'm proposing that we be more precise about when and how we use it. When referring to public platforms, it's the appropriate term. But when we're talking about the technology more broadly, it's better to use an alternative...

Alternative 1: I prefer the terms social technology or social technologies, which are still accurate descriptors but less loaded.

Alternative 2: A more encompassing alternative is social and digital technologies, which encompasses not just software, but also hardware (i.e., mobile devices) and services (i.e., cloud-based computing).

Alternative 3: My personal favorite new term is SMAC, which stands for social (software), mobile (devices and access), (data) analytics, and cloud (computing) and reflects the convergence among these technology movements. Individually, each movement is incredibly powerful. Together, they have the potential to create dramatic transformations. Over time, they will be virtually indistinguishable.

 

Anything 2.0. A few years ago it was important to append 2.0 to various terms (e.g., Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Government 2.0) to reflect the fact that social media was causing a shift from static internet-based sites with one-directional communication to collaborative sites characterized by multi-directional communication. As social technologies have become more integrated into digital platforms of all types, as well as the organizations that leverage those platforms, it's probably no longer necessary to add the 2.0 qualifier.

 

Social Business, Social Enterprise, Social Learning. All three terms accurately convey their intent; unfortunately they all also have distinct meanings that have no specific connections to social technologies. Both Social Business and Social Enterprise, for example, along with Social Entrepreneurship, are used to refer to for-profit businesses that have charitable or socially-oriented missions. And Social Learning is most strongly connected to social learning theory, which was developed in the late 1970s.

We could argue that we need to find better language to reflect the phenomena these terms refer to, but I might suggest that we should simply stop trying to use them. Over time, as social and digital technologies become more integrated into all aspects of organizational life, the “social” qualifier will become redundant and unnecessary. This applies not only to the terms above but others like social intranet and social recognition.

 

The New Normal. Although it will continue to evolve, the Digital Era is fully established. Even resisters and laggards are impacted by enhanced forms of communication and collaboration every day, often without even being aware of it. So referring to the realities created by social and digital technologies as a "brave new world" or "the new normal" implies a novelty that no longer exists. It is, simply put, just normal.

 

In Real Life (IRL). This term originated to distinguish earth-based interactions from cyber interactions. And even though resisters continue to use the term to disparage digital communication as being inferior to face-to-face communication, most folks have come to realize that it’s all real life! More importantly, rather than creating a false dichotomy between the different ways in which we know and interact with one another, we are better served by figuring out how to integrate them in the most efficient and effective ways to achieve our goals and objectives. This term should go, but we probably still need something to distinguish the virtual and physical worlds. I’ve been experimenting with using earthspace. Yeah, I know - it's kind of awkward. I’d love to hear alternatives…

 

Microblogging. This term is still technically accurate, but it now seems antiquated and kind of clunky, perhaps because the activity has morphed into wall posts, shares, and status updates on a variety of platforms both public (e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn, G+) and private (e.g., Yammer, SharePoint and a host of social intranet products). And because Twitter and Tumblr have emerged as the dominant microblogging platforms, people tend to refer to those sites and their related activities by their brand names rather than using generic terms. Basically, no one ever says, “I’m going to microblog about that” or “I’m going to post that to my microblog.” Now that I think about it, did they ever?

Note: One could argue we should also get rid of the term “blog,” which no longer literally reflects what they are or do, but we seem to have good consensus on the connotation so it’s likely to stick around.

 

Smartphone. People who own these devices obviously use them for much more than talking on the phone. More importantly, their other uses are likely to be much more significant. Given that, it's more accurate to refer to them as mobile communication devices or a mobile computing devices – or MCDs for short. Yes, people may look at you funny and make fun of you at first, but eventually they'll agree the term is more logical and even a bit more elegant. It's kind of got a Star Trek vibe... :)

Adopting  the term MCD can also bring an end to the silly-sounding term phablet, which according to the Wikipedia definition is a “portmanteau of the words phone and tablet.” If distinguishing based on size is important (which I’m not sure it is), perhaps we can adopt mini-MCD, midi-MCD, and maxi-MCD (which would include both full-sized tablets and hybrid devices like Microsoft’s Surface.

 

What other changes would you suggest?

Comments

[Bill Michalak]

Courtney,
Goodness gracious. You said a lot in an incredibly small amount of space.

From my perspective as an HR professional, I can’t argue with what you have stated, but I think you are in a unique position and thus you have more complex thoughts on these terms, leading to you current position. I am simply a user, so terms like “social media” mean something to me, and like most people, this sort of works for us. You are a user who understands much of the technology behind the terms, as well as, a professional that consults on how to create value using these technologies, recognizes the inadequacy of some of the terms because of your greater knowledge on the subject.
So, this brings us to your audience. If you are talking to the masses, “social media” and “smart phones” work just fine. But, if you are talking to the people who create and build these things, your suggested terms would seem to make a lot of sense. Then, if you are talking to people in organizations that implement processes using these terms, they are communicating to the masses, so perhaps the current understood terms still make sense, but they really need to understand some of the points you made in the article. The resisters and the laggards probably are not going to change, so they don’t deserve any of your very valuable time.

In summary, the utility of these terms would seem to depend on to whom you are speaking. Personally, as a not-so-smart user, I trust your useful-blog, without any regard for its size, to sort through these more complex ideas for me. Once again, you have broadened my thinking on this subject, yet, as a simple user, spared me the need to do anything about it, because I know you are on the case and you will keep me informed as progress is made. So thanks.

[Emily Hazzard]

Courtney, as I said on LinkedIn - SMACers. It has a nice ring to it. :) It gets around that whole "I'm a social media person" or "I do social media." Now we just get to SMAC!

[Carlos E. Cortes]

Dear Ms. Hunt,

Thanks for another valuable piece of common sense and clever reflection on SMinOrgs. I think the whole bias started with the infamous e- standing for electronic, which created the technocentric idea of all things being an IT outcome. I would delete all of them if I could.

I agree with your suggestions, even though acronyms are not my favorites. But I would like to highlight another interesting term, already well developed in Wikipedia: The social web, described as “a set of social relations that link people through the World Wide Web. The Social web encompasses how websites and software are designed and developed in order to support and foster social interaction. These online social interactions form the basis of much online activity including online shopping, education, gaming and social networking websites.”

Have a nice day,

Carlos E. Cortes

[Courtney Shelton Hunt, PhD]

Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts, Bill, Emily and Carlos.

Bill, I love your comments, and this one made me smile! As much as I understand and appreciate your point of view, however, I have to push back a little on whether non-technical users need to have a better understanding of the meanings of different terms. Specifically, I have found that because people - especially leaders - have such a narrow perception of what social media means to them, they are unable to grasp the true implications of these technologies for them and their organizations, as well as the responsibilities they have with respect to leveraging and managing them. So it's less about whether the term is okay and more about whether their understanding and use of that term is appropriate. The points in this post are points I regularly make in my presentations to senior professionals who are technology rookies, and they seem to help expand their Digital Era perspectives.

Emily, I love the notion of referring to folks who work with evolving technologies as SMACers.

Carlos: You’re right, the “social web” is a great term that accurately describes how the web has evolved - and it's one that personally resonates with me. Tim Berners-Lee, however, might disagree. He argues that the www was always intended to be “social,” so there’s no need to add a qualifier.

[Courtney Shelton Hunt, PhD]

Interesting timing. Nilofer Merchant just published a piece on semantics in the HBR blogs. Here's a link, along with an excerpt of my comment:

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/02/what_we_talk_about_when_we_tal.html

Interesting timing. I just published my own semantically oriented piece entitled ""Social Media" is SO 2009! 7 Proposed Semantic Upgrades." In the piece I specifically address terms like "social media," "enterprise 2.0," and "social business," but my assessment and recommendations differ in some key respects from those offered here. Among other things, I suggest we start to move away from the social and 2.0 qualifiers. They will increasingly become redundant and unnecessary as the elements of social technologies become more fully integrated into the systems and operations of organizations and the daily activities of individual workers and teams. In addition, continuing to refer to "social" highlights only one aspect of a four-pronged movement of converging technologies - social, mobile, analytics, cloud (aka SMAC). Given the rise of these complementary and integrative technologies, we need to consider "social technologies" in context rather than as a separate thing/activity/trend/set of tools.

Precision in terminology is certainly important, and I would build on your point that we shouldn't perpetuate the use of terms anchored in the past (see my comment about "smart phones" by noting that we should also be careful not to anchor terms too much in the present. Given the speed of change, we should be trying to develop and employ terms that focus on where we're going rather than where we are or where we've been.

PS - To reinforce a broader perspective on the changes in communication technology (i.e., the elements of SMAC and whatever else is coming), I prefer to use the term Digital Era.